White Peony. He was wracked with loss, as if she had ripped a hole out in his heart, and that chasm was filled with yearning; he stifled a sob. Was it that mask, that held him so in thrall? Did she make that mask deliberately, carefully stitching it together layer by layer out of the petals of his dreams, just to snare his soul, as he had taken hers all those years ago? Even now he longed to reach for her, his White Peony; he wanted to kiss her salt-stained lids and tell her not to worry, her king was here, her king could make all things right …
“What can I do?"—his voice, when it came out, was thin and rasping, like tearing paper.
“I just want my life back." Her eyes were bleak, but in their deep unfathomable wells still glimmered a faint shadow of hope. "Rescue me, my king," she whispered.
Oh, how he wanted to save her! But what would she ask of him?
“This hunger,” she whispered, “It’s so painful, it never ends. Won’t you give to me, freely, as I have given you?”
The king gave in. How could he resist? He looked up, reaching for her. He opened his mouth to speak; he would give her anything she asked for, did she not know that? He would take her back with him to the palace, even crown her as queen if she wanted. She just had to wait until he did his duty as king—just wait, he pleaded, for first he had to slay the beast …
But she knew what he was asking of her and shook her head, eyes welling up with frustration. “No, don’t ask of me anything—it is not that I want—I gave you my whole self, my king!” Her voice rose as the king slowly withdrew his hand, shaking his head; terror returned to his cheeks as he stared at her, aghast, finally understanding what she was asking of him. At the king’s silence she bowed her head, white lips trembling. “But, my king, she whispered, don’t you want to save your people?”
The king's lips parted in shock; but even as she held his hand up gently to her lips, yearning held him in thrall; and the king found to his horror that, bound by his own desire, he could not move an inch—even as she sank her teeth down, slowly, into the white, fleshy tip of his finger.
Could he have chosen otherwise? Could he have fought? Spurious questions—for none can tell. The beast had taken his mind, or perhaps it was he himself who had; but in any case he thought he should sacrifice himself. It was his duty, what he was capable of. The queen would see, they would all see. When White Bone Spirit was assuaged, she would plague his people no longer. He was doing it for love.
Immured in his seat, the king gave himself up to be butchered, fried, spiced up and adorned, and watched with diminishing alarm as his flesh was removed from his bones. White Peony was always courteous; only once in her eagerness did she let slip her illusion to reveal her real skeleton beneath, the skeleton he had reduced her to, or that she had reduced herself to for him. When she did he shut his eyes; he could not bear to see those rancorous, jutting bones—too clean, too white, too accusing. Otherwise he gazed at her with pitying eyes, and still he continued to sit, paralysed as the stone stool beneath him.
But when it was time for him to give up his heart, he found that he could not.
His brain was still in his skull, and though he was but a skeleton now, his heart still beat in his chest; a doughty, precious bird. Proud as an eagle it thrashed its wings against his ribs and drove him forward, while White Bone was sleeping, to the cliff’s edge; then downwards it flung him, down, down, and down, finally soaring free.
The king pauses in his tale. Hawk eyes gauge his queen’s reaction.
The porcelain teapot wobbles in the queen’s hand as she tips it over his cup, head bowed in servitude. Hot tea splashes onto the wooden table, black and pungent, still smoking. Its floral scent mingles with the perfume of peonies and chrysanthemums on the table, which, lush and blooming and shoved in between them in a priceless porcelain vase, blocked their view of each other.
Though shaken, years of practice before the mirror has afforded her a stately grace and mask-like composure; so now with a face as still and pale as alabaster the queen lowers herself into her seat and meets the smouldering eyes of her husband, familiar yet unfamiliar.
“Yet you live still,” she says, “And slew the beast.” Her eyes travel upward, to where the skull grins from the wall above their heads. “How?”
Such pomp there was in the palace that afternoon, in the wake of his return. She had just been holding court in his stead when the heralds sounded their horns and the gates opened for her husband. Then back to his throne he strode, weary but triumphant, bearing the beast’s skull on his back. And now there it is, hanging above her like a guillotine, grotesque and mocking, her very own angel of death.
The perfume of the spilt tea wafts into her nose, smoky and sweet, suffused with the aromas of spring. Yet next to the beast’s head everything seemed repugnant. The stink of death drifts under it, insidious fingers coiling themselves around and through her mind.
“Life,” the king mused. “Yes, I suppose I live still. And yet I have not been alive for a long time.”
Uncertain, the queen studies him, but his face remains inscrutable. Slowly, she nods. “Neither of us have, I suppose. Our hearts have long withered, our love long grown cold.” Her lips twist; a small, wistful smile passes them like a shadow, fleeting, cloaked, and tinged with bitterness. “Yet nine years ago I would have died for you.”
The king gives a low, sardonic laugh. “How touching." In one fluid motion he is behind her, and with a chill Yeni feels the prick of a cold blade against her side. The king's voice, silky and arresting, breathes into her ear. "How you have proven your love, my queen, with a dagger in my back.”
Yeni bows her head, silent.
“Why, Yeni?” says the king softly, “Why betray me?”
“I hated you,” she says harshly, then with an effort of will stills herself. “But of late I have grown weary of hate, for its other face is love. Now I seek only to live.” Closing her eyes, she swallows; and when she speaks again her voice is spent. “Yet for as long as you live and I love you, I cannot live.”
And then she shrugs, as if she could shrug off the shadow of the beast hanging above her.
The prick at her side digs deeper, drawing blood.
The queen talks, babbling mindlessly.
“Or perhaps I have never loved you—you, certainly, have loved no one but yourself. Perhaps I hate—hated you because you are but a man, reeking of your own failure, falling too far short of the king I fell for within a dream in which he loved me back completely. No matter. Today and henceforth there is no love, no hate. You will kill me and all will fade to dust.”
Taking a deep breath she raises her cup in a toast. Her hand was steady, her gaze firm on the space in front of her. “Strike swiftly, my love, king of my heart.”
With a quick, graceful tilt of her head, she downs her cup.
Silky and redolent, the tea washes down her throat. Its scent intensifies; a roast, earthy scent, like old herbs and spices, thick as rust, mud, tar. It builds up in her nose, charring, blackening. There is a sting in it now, of something sweet and coppery; yet stifling, like swords dug from tombs, musty as an ancient kitchen; and above the smoky miasma a floral, mineral perfume drips, bleeding a honey like incense, sultry and nauseating.
The prick fades from her side and blood oozes out, warm and tingling. Slowly, with dread and mounting incredulity, the queen turns her head and looks into her mistress’ eyes.
The sound of his bones shattering echoed across the silent mountain like the distant clamour of a discordant tune.
White Bone was awakened abruptly, and upon finding her love missing flew out in panic, winging like a white moth over the trees and the towering granite rocks until she found him, her king, broken and battered at the foot of a cliff. His heart had stopped, a black stone amid the debris of splintered bone; his brain seeped into the soil, oozing slowly, lost by the second to her desperate fingers.
Despairingly she ingurgitated his heart; then lifted her head and howled, lips dripping black, her wail
cutting thinly through the night like pale shreds of a song. That bitter lament lingered in the air, haunting the mountains so that from that day forth no living soul dared step on it again.
The teacup shatters.
Her husband’s body curves daintily to the floor to pick up the largest shard of porcelain. The action is performed with uncanny grace, like a wingless dragon. But quickly Yeni grabs the vase on the table and smashes in half, leaving its slender neck in her hand; and leaping out of her seat she whirls round to face him, jagged shard pointing at her lover's chest.
Water splashes and flowers scatter to the floor, pearl-white and gold, pristine forms floundering as they dissolve, twitching, into a dismal shimmer of entropic fractals.
“Stay back,” Yeni gasps, brandishing her blade. Trembling she steps back, trodding on her rug of broken stems.
“Even now,” the king’s face says sorrowfully, “you would plunge a dagger in my heart.” And his voice, emerging from her husband’s throat, shifted in register, became smooth and musical.
That bewitching, spellbinding voice! She had nearly forgotten it. Long ago had she buried it with relief, thinking never to hear it again; but now here it was, gnashing its teeth against her soul.
The king’s eyes shift thoughtfully to the porcelain piece in his hand. Then with one swift stroke, he slices it across his throat.
Blood gushes out. Above the gash the beast's smile was sad. “You see? I have no flesh now. You cannot hurt me.” And then, walking around the queen's throne, she steps lightly into the jutting edge in Yeni’s hand.
The pointed tip of the fragment should have pierced firm flesh—should have made a sound—yet it meets only air. Yeni gapes, horrified, and totters back.
Her porcelain knife falls to the floor with a gentle, echoing chime, splintering into a thousand slivers of white. The shards sprinkle the floor like stars, and the beast steps, imperviously, onto her celestial carpet. With eyes grim and grave she glides towards her vengeance, while the king’s feet, snagging on the porcelain barbs, trail blood on the floor, staining red the tiles. With soft, sucking sounds his flesh tears off — until what stands finally before the queen is her husband’s body no more, only a harsh, flawless framework of bone, barely human.
The metallic tang of blood and ichor soaks the air, infused with flowers; a reminder of what might have been.
“You never loved him,” White Bone says softly, her long white fingers entwining Yeni’s neck, “While I, I sacrificed my all for him." Her face, all white, was set and quiet, and gingerly her bony thumbs caressed her throat. "Is it worth it," she murmurs, "Is it worth it, in the end, to betray me?”
Then the queen freezes in the blood-red haze of her fright; for in the space of one terrifying heartbeat it seems to her that the skull rearing before her with its bitter grin and empty eye-sockets is her own, and her jaws clamp down hard on the tender flesh inside her elbow—that crease like an envelope, whispering promises of secrets—yet to her horror she finds that inside there is nothing.
Her face leers at her like a mirror, and within the crevice of her flesh she finds that there is only bone, sharp and unyielding. Only bone, pure bone—as sharp as glass, and white and stark as justice.
THE END.
FAME AND FORTUNE by Jason R Bleckly
A breeze rustled through the tavern’s vine covered pergola. Beneath it, slumped at a split-log table with a half-empty pot of cider at her elbow was Helene. “What are we going to do?” she said picking at a splinter of wood with her thumbnail.
Sitting opposite her with his eyes half closed, Sean said nothing. The food and beer in conjunction with the dappled sunlight had made him drowsy. He had his feet up with his chair titled so far back it teetered. There were so few sunny days remaining before winter set in that he intended to make the most of each one.
“Oi, I asked you a question,” Helene said as she reached across the table and nudged Sean’s scuffed boot upsetting his delicate equilibrium and causing the chair to topple backwards.
Arms windmilling, Sean and the chair crashed to the ground. Using his backwards momentum Sean rolled into a handstand before tipping lithely to his feet. “Nobody panic. That was deliberate,” he said righting his chair.
The villagers seated around the tavern’s other tables barely glanced his way. “There are other ways of getting a person’s attention you know,” said Sean as he resumed his seat.
Picking up his pot he looked into it with dismay. A few dregs of stale beer swirled in the bottom. He set it aside and craned his neck to peer into Helene’s. “Are you planning to do anything with that?”
Helene straightened in her seat and waved the drink away. “Go ahead, have it, but tell me what we’re going to do? We only have sixteen silvers left. That will cover the rent here for a week, after that we’ll be out on our ear.”
Smiling, Sean picked up her cider and drained it. The taste reminded him of their relationship, sweet, but with a peppery bite that left him wanting more. “You worry too much,” he said smacking his lips. “Something will turn up. It always does.” He set Helene’s now empty pot down. “Just relax and enjoy life for once.” Taking his own advice Sean stretched out in the chair carefully keeping all four of its legs on the ground. With hands clasped behind his head and eyes closed, he tilted his face back towards the afternoon sun.
Helene continued bemoaning their situation, “The harvest is in and the caravans have stopped moving. Everyone is holing up for winter. How are we going to survive with no work and sixteen silvers? You might be happy to sleep in a cave like a troll, but I like my comforts. I want a warm bed, good food, the occasional pot of cider. I don’t think that’s asking too much.”
Sean sat up and studied her. They were complete opposites. He didn’t know why they stayed together. It’s not as if they were lovers, though there had been that one night shortly after they met. They had both been drunk and woken up naked under the same blanket. He was no longer sure if the fragmentary memories of that night had even happened. They could be fantasies conjured by his mind to fill in the blanks. Since then their six-year relationship had been entirely platonic, even when drunk.
They also looked completely different. Helene kept her obsidian hair cut short, while his sugar white locks fell well below his shoulders. Her eyes were emerald and her skin alabaster. Traits inherited from her father’s people living in the frozen tundra of the deep south. By contrast, his skin was olive and his almond shaped eyes liquorice black like all his race.
The variety of features amongst humans was something of a sore point between their races. Elven people were all the same, regardless of whether they came from the northern tropics, the southern tundra, or anywhere in-between. There was a legend of a great warrior elf born with blue eyes. He was supposed to have lived ten thousand years ago. The legend said he had united all the elf tribes into one and founded the Sidhe council. Sean liked the heroic struggle in the tale but suspected it was more myth than reality.
A flicker of red caught his attention. A young man was striding purposefully across the village square towards the stage at its centre. The stage served two functions, hangings and public proclamations. Sean assumed it was the latter for which the man approached. Hangings always drew a large crowd and no one currently stood before the stage. The tavern’s location on the square’s verge allowed villagers to hear proclamations without leaving the comfort of their drinks. Indeed, most of the tavern’s patrons hadn’t even looked up.
The man’s flowing robes were not a subtle shade, but bright crimson. Even the large floppy beret plonked on his head was of that hue. A golden tassel hanging from the beret provided the only relief to the sea of red. Here is a man trying to draw attention to himself, Sean thought and briefly wondered if his undergarments were also red.
As the man climbed to the stage a few villagers wandered into the heart of the square to hear what he had to say.
“Sean are you listening to me?” Helene asked.
He wasn’t. Like a five year old at a fair, he was fixated on the brightly coloured movement on stage.
The crimson clad crier ascended the steps and moved to centre stage. A small audience now milled about the base. He waited until they quietened before pulling a rolled parchment from the voluminous folds of his robe.
Unrolling it he cleared his throat and cried, “Let it be known to all the wizard Alabrasia Alyonsius will pay five hundred gold coins to the person, or persons, who retrieve Koton’s Book of Magic from the Labyrinth of Skarnos beneath the Skarnos Mountains.” Having completed the proclamation the crier tacked the parchment to the stage’s notice board. Then, robes billowing, he descended and headed back to the council hall.
“That’s it,” Sean cried jumping to his feet and dashing to the stage. He didn’t bother with the stairs but vaulted onto the platform with a single lithe leap. Yanking the recently attached parchment from the board he cast his eye over the ornate and flowing script. Sean wished he could read, the swirls and curls looked delightfully officious. Re-rolling the dry parchment, he slipped it inside his doeskin jerkin.
Sean strolled back across the square as nonchalantly as he could, given the mad dash of his first crossing. Helene, still seated at the tavern’s table, was giving him a peculiar look. A few other people were giving him similar looks. He smiled genially at them all, but otherwise ignored them.
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